A thumbnail history of the United States Army Ambulance Service, which first arrived in June of 1917.
"All through the hard French fighting of 1917 the 6,000 American ambulance drivers kept steadily at work in every sector of the French front. It was not until March, 1918, that the first sections of the service found themselves helping in battles with the fighting regiments of their own Army."
Many of the volunteers were college men, such as the poet E.E. Cummings, who wrote an interesting account of his days as an ambulance driver during the war.
An action-packed account of the first all-American trench raid of the World War I. The Stars and Stripes reported that the raid set in the Loraine Sector in March of 1918 and the entire affair was said to have lasted forty-seven minuites from start to finish. The participating unit was not named.
This uncredited "Stars & Stripes" article dwells on the same topic as the well-researched book by Joseph Persico, Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918 (2003, Random House). For those who are curious about the violent climax of the war, this two page article will help you to understand which A.E.F. units were still attacking along what front at 10:59 a.m. on November 11, 1918.
"Then a quite startling thing occurred. The skyline of the crest ahead of them grew suddenly populous with dancing soldiers...The Germans came with outstretched hands, ear-to-ear grins and souvenirs to swap for cigarettes."
"So came to an end the 11th of November, 1918; the 585th day since America entered the war."
There is no reference made to Sergeant Henry Gunther, of Baltimore, who was shot through the chest by German machine gun bullets at 10:59 outside the sleepy hamlet of Ville-devant-Chaumont.
The Navajo code-talkers in the Second World War are well-known, but not so terribly well known were their brothers the Sioux, and the similar contributions that they had made just twenty years earlier in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
An explanation from the official newspaper of the A.E.F. as to how the First World War American fighter pilots were credited for their victories in the war against Germany.
The influenza of 1918 took a large bite out of the American Army, both at home and abroad. The military and civilian medical authorities were at a loss as to what actions should be taken to contain the disease, and as they paused to plan, thousands died. The attached article describes one step that provided some measure of success in the short term.
The American poet Carl Sandburg once wrote words to the effect that "Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work" - a very soldierly description it was, too. That said, an anonymous Journalist from The Stars and Stripes examined the casual lingo muttered by the Doughboys in France and surmised that a
"universal slang in this man's army is as hard to find as universal peace in this man's world."
Perhaps it was all due to the fact that we weren't in that war long enough to make it our own.
Best known for his 1913 poem, "Trees", Joyce Kilmer (1886 - 1918) served as a Sergeant in the 69th Infantry Regiment (Forty Second Division). On July 30, 1918, he took a German bullet in the head and was buried not far from where he fell.
This short piece reported of the despoiling of that grave by his fellow Americans.
The attached is a post-Armistice Day report on the American Army accounting figures involving the number of American soldiers and Marines serving in France at the time of the Armistice, how many (and which units) would be required for German occupation and how many would soon be repatriated.
On February 5, 1918 the Cunard passenger liner, Tuscania (having been pressed into service as a troop ship) was sent to the bottom of the sea by a German U-boat; well over one thousand, five hundred Doughboys from various units were drowned, as were her British crew which was numbered over three hundred. On the first anniversary a survivor of the attack wrote to the editors of the Stars and Stripes.
The following article presented a brief account of the deeds of Major Charles W. Whittlesey of the 308th Infantry Regiment ( Seventy Seventh Division) and why he was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Shortly after the war Whittlesey would commit suicide.
Coffee has the ability to remedy some physical ailments, however this small article told the story of one U.S. Army Colonel who felt so helpless upon seeing so many sick army men come ashore in France suffering from such a terrible illness as influenza, and was moved to do the only thing that he could in his power to offer comfort: unlimited cups of hot coffee. How real was coffee as a preventative measure in the face of influenza? The good colonel was on to something - it wasn't the java bean that made an impact, it was the heat: viruses die when exposed to high temperatures.
The following article must have been penned as a result of some sort of creative writing project for one of the many bored World War One Doughboys waiting for the boat home. The article spells out how the necessities of modern war demanded that the wrist watch no longer be thought of as a piece of jewelery adorned only by fops and fems and evolved into a useful tool for soldiers on the field. The column makes clear that prior the Great War, any man who dared to accessorize themselves with a watch was immediately suspect and likely to have their noses broken.
The T-shirt also had a military origin. Click here to read the article
A cartoon by C. LeRoy Baldridge (1889 – 1977) which depicted the streets of Paris in a way that only the A.E.F. could have witnessed it. A Yank-heavy Place de l'Opera is overwhelmed by sight-seeing Doughboys (note the Y.M.C.A. patch on the tour guide) and loitering officers lounging about over-priced cafes. In the foreground stands a bewildered Doughboy, dumb-struck by the passing gaze of an appreciative Parisienne while a few steps away a four-gold-chevroned private gets reamed for failing to salute the single-chevron looey. The stage is shared by bickering cabees, melancholy widows, wandering sailors, unforgiving MPs and a hard-charging, over-weight uniformed woman.
By the time April of 1919 rolled around, it seemed to the Doughboys who were waiting for that boat to take them "back to the good ol' U.S. of A" that their French allies had a short term memory and were terribly ungrateful for American sacrifices made on their behalf. Many post-Armistice letters written by the Doughboys were filled with snide comments about the high prices they were asked to pay for everyday merchandise, prices that seemed to be chosen just for them. Wisely, the Stars and Stripes editors chose not to take sides in this debate but ran this nifty little piece about the manner in which the Americans of 1782 treated their French allies during the American Revolution.
Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.
An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army's Twenty-Sixth Division
(a.k.a. the "Yankee Division
")during World War I.
This is a swell read, written in that patois so reminiscent of those fast talking guys in 1930s Hollywood movies. One of the many reasons I find this era so interesting has to do with the fact that the war coincided with that mass-media phenomenon called advertising - and this article pertains exactly to that coincidence. This column was printed shortly after the war in order to let the Doughboys in on the existence of a particular group within the A.E.F. that was charged with the task of dumping propaganda leaflets all over the German trench lines:
"Propaganda is nothing but a fancy war name for publicity and who knows the publicity game better than the Yanks?"
Three notices appeared in the fall of 1918 announcing changes in design for three items issued to American troops: the 1918 combat knife, a.k.a. 'the Knuckle-Duster", the mess kit and the canteen. Interestingly, the notice pertaining to the canteen states that Doughboys had been carrying both French canteens and American canteens by the end of the war.
Click here to read magazine articles from the Second World War.
A short notice concerning the number of sexually diseased American World War I soldiers who were treated or segregated during the war and post-war periods.
What is missing from this report was an anecdote involving General John Pershing, who upon hearing that his army was being depleted by social disease, quickly called for the posting of Military Policemen at each bordello to discourage all further commerce. The immediate results of this action were pleasing to many in the American senior command however the next problem concerned the growing number of venereal cases within the ranks of the Military Police.
If there was any mascot who best represented the staff of the old Stars and Stripes, it would have been their primary cartoonist (even though he was a Marine), Abian Wallgren (1892 - 1948) - who went by the name, "Wally". Looking back 20 years, Wally remembers how he got started as a cartoonist and what Armistice Day was like at the paper's office.
One of war's many, many sad stories. This one concerned a German mother living in Coblenz during the American post-war occupation and how she came to realize that her son would not be coming home.
When the Doughboys began arriving in France the infantry and artillery were kept in the rear areas and taught the necessities of World War One trench warfare. This was not the case with engineering units of the A.E.F. who were dubbed "noncombatants" and dispatched hither and yon to attend to those duties deemed appropriate for men with such training. The U.S. Sixth Regiment of Engineers were rebuilding roads on the Somme when the German army came across no-man's land on March 21, 1918 (a.k.a. Kaiserschlacht: "the Kaiser's battle) and they were quickly ordered to go in support of a nearby British regiment. These engineers were the first Americans to come under German fire and their story is told here by Private E.P. Broadstreet, who was there.
The experiences of the 108th Engineers (Thirty-Third Division) during the Argonne campaign is also told in this article.
Another first-hand account of that day can be read in an interview that appears in this book: Make the Kaiser Dance.
"Monday, June 2 (1919), was a holiday in the 2nd Division in the bridgehead on the Rhine. The anniversary of the battle of Chateau-Thierry was observed. It is just a year ago that infantry and Marines of the 2nd Division were thrown against the Boche on the Paris-Metz road near Chateau-Thierry, and from that moment on the Americans were in continual fighting until November 11."
An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army's 90th Infantry Division during World War One. We have also provided a review of A History of the 90th Division by Major George Wythe (which the reviewer didn't especially care for but nonetheless provides a colorful account of the division's history in France).
Sergeant Alexander Woollcott (1887 - 1943) wrote this article so that his New York readers (whom he had not addressed since signing on with the Doughboys) would know the key roll Corporal Harold Ross (1892 - 1951) played as Managing Editor at the Paris offices of The Stars & Stripes. Anyone who glances at those now brittle, beige pages understands how sympathetic the The Stars & Stripes and their readers were to the many thousands of French children orphaned by the war; Woollcott makes it clear that it was Harold Ross who was behind the A.E.F. charities that brought needed relief to those urchins.
"It seems certain that no man in the A.E.F. had a greater influence on it's thought and spirit...The men who worked with him on The Stars & Stripes considered him the salt of the earth."
To read another W.W. I article by Alexander Woocott, click here.
By the time this news column was read by the American Doughboys the truce was old news, however it makes for an interesting read as it is able to impart much of the Armistice excitement that filled the streets of Paris when the news of the surrender hit the boulevards. This front-page column makes clear that many of the rumors pertaining to the German collapse could not be verified, yet affirms reports concerning the revolution in Germany, it's food shortages and the Kaiser's exile to Holland.
Click here to read World War II articles from YANK MAGAZINE.
A few historians tend to believe that the sobriquet Doughboy had it's origins in the 1846 - 48 war with Mexico (a perversion of the Spanish word 'adobe'), but the attached article makes a different reference, dating the term to the American army's period in the Philippines. An effort was also made to explain the term Buck Private.
Click here if you would like to read an article about the Doughboy training camps.
This article appeared some seven months after the war, and it presents an interesting account of the first American tank units that ever existed.
The preferred tank of the American Army of World War I was a light tank made by the French called a Renault. It had a crew of two, measured 13 feet (4 meters) in length and weighed 6.5 tons. The tank's 35 hp. engine moved it along at a top speed of 6 miles per hour. This article outlines where the American tanks fought, which units they supported and who commanded them; some readers may be interested to know that reference is made to the First American Tank Brigade and the officer in charge: Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton (1885 – 1945).
"During the course of the Meuse-Argonne battles, the tank units of the 1st Brigade had lost 3 officers and 16 enlisted men killed, and 21 officers and 131 enlisted men were wounded. These losses were suffered in 18 separate engagements..."
An article by The American Legion Weekly correspondent Rex Lapham about the last issue (until the next war) of The Stars and Stripes. The article recorded many sentimental remarks, words of praise and seldom heard facts about the history of the Doughboy newspaper.
"If the paper found it's way across, as it surely did, into the hands of the German intelligence officers - if that's what they could be called - it must have given them something to ponder about. How could they have reported anything favorable to the ears of the German high command after having perused this defiant and determined manifestation of Doughboy psychology?"
Click here to read how the newspaper was staffed and managed in 1918 Paris.
1919 marked the third anniversary of the Battle of Verdun and the grounds were still littered with the dead, surrounded by a tons of equipment, lying in open fields pock-marked by thousands of high explosive shells:
"Spring will come to France next month, but Spring will not come to the field of Verdun. Already the grass is green on the broad stretches of Champagne; in the Vosges the snow patches linger only in the stubborn shelter of rocks that bar the sun,; but there is no portent of resurrection in all the stretch of churned up gravel marking the line of forts that protect the citadel of the Meuse from the Northeast...the shell holes are filled with clear water, and between them course new born brooks, sublimating in crystal pools from which no man would dare drink."
The battle of Cantigny (May 28 - 31, 1918) was America's first division sized engagement during the First World War; George Marshall would later opine that the objective was "of no strategic importance and of small tactical value". General Pershing was hellbent on eradicating from the popular memory any mention of the A.E.F.'s poor performance at Seicheprey some weeks earlier, and Cantigny was as good a battleground in which to do it as any. Assessing the battle two weeks after the Armistice, Pershing's "yes men" at the Stars & Stripes wrote:
"But at Cantigny it had been taught to the world the significant lesson that the American soldier was fully equal to the soldier of any other nation on the field of battle."
Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.
Click here to read a STARS & STRIPES article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I...
Appearing in The Stars and Stripes in mid-February of 1918 was this column about one of the newest disciplines to be introduced to the photographic section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps: the motion picture branch.
"There is one movie-officer at present assigned to every division in the A.E.F.; one might call him the camera battery, if one wanted to get really military about it. Under him is a squad of expert photographers, some movie men, some 'still' snappers.
"From the time when the sun finally decides that he might as well hobble up in the sky and do part of a day's work, which isn't often in this region, until the time that the aged, decrepit old solar luminary decides again, about the middle of the afternoon, that he's done all he's going to do while the calender is fixed the way it is, the camera battery is up and around taking pot-shots at everything in sight... They may be 'covering' a review, a series of field maneuvers 'up front' or merely Blank Company's wash day at the village fountain. But always when the sun is shining, they are at it."
Click here to read a YANK MAGAZINE article about the Signal Corps films in the Second World War
"Mr. Junius B Wood, correspondent of the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS with the A.E.F. recently spent a week in the sector held by the American Army Northwest of Toul. He lived the life of a Doughboy, slept a little and saw a lot. He spent his days in and near the front line and some of his nights in No Man's Land. Here is the second and concluding installment of his story, depicting life at the front as it actually is..."
Attached is a list of the twelve inconveniences that W.W. I American soldiers hated the most about their lives over there (well over 50% of them had to do with certain elements of their uniforms).
In one of the first issues of the Stars & Stripes, it was decided to mark the historic occasion of the American arrival on the World War One front line with the always reliable baseball comparison. Printed beneath a headline that clearly implied that the war itself was actually "the World Series" sat one of the worst poems to ever appear on the front page of any newspaper:
"The Boches claim the Umpire is a sidin' with their nine,
But we are not the boobs to fall for such a phony line;
We know the game is fair and square, decision on the level;
The only boost the Kaiser gets is from his pal the Devil..."
"On the afternoon of December 8, 1918, the troops of the Third American Army entered Koblenz. This was the goal of the occupation. The Yankees had reached the Rhine."
"Probably never in all its stressful history did enemy troops enter it so in quite the matter-of-fact manner which marked the American entry last Sunday. There was no band. There were no colors. 'We're just going in sort of casual like,' one of our generals had said the day before, and he was right."
The American performance at the battle of Chateau-Thierry proved to General Foche that the Americans had the necessary stuff, and it was widely recognized that the Doughboys played the key roll in keeping the Germans out of Paris.
The attached STARS AND STRIPES article is extremely detailed as to the individual units (both French and American) that participated in rolling back the Germans along the Marne.
"On June 4, the best information available indicated that the enemy was employing not less than 33 divisions, about 3000,000 men...But like the defenders of Verdun, the American machine gunners set their teeth and said, 'They shall not pass.'"
"The 36th Division has a little corner by itself in the general field covered by the A.E.F. It was not brought into either of the American major operation or into any American sector. Off by itself, under French command, it came into line in Champagne... Theses troops came bang into the middle of the hardest fighting, without any quiet sector preliminaries, and without a relatively easy initiation like St. Mihiel."
Written during the closing days of the paper's existence, the reporting journalist could not emphasize enough how lousy the paper was with enlisted men serving in the most important positions. You will come away with a good amount of knowledge concerning the manner in which The Stars and Stripes crew addressed their daily duties and still made it to the presses on time. Surprising is the high number of experienced newspapermen who wrote for the paper during the paper's short existence.
(2003, Random House). For those who are curious about the violent climax of the war, this two page article will help you to understand which A.E.F. units were still attacking along what front at 10:59 a.m. on November 11, 1918.
) and why he was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Shortly after the war Whittlesey would commit suicide.
, and was moved to do the only thing that he could in his power to offer comfort: unlimited cups of hot coffee. How real was coffee as a preventative measure in the face of influenza? The good colonel was on to something - it wasn't the java bean that made an impact, it was the heat: viruses die when exposed to high temperatures.
(a.k.a. the "
.
